Thursday, November 13, 2014

Thinking Gender 2015

Thinking Gender is an interconnected scholarly space for graduate students studying gender, race, and sexuality across all disciplines and historical periods. Augmenting the scale and the scope of this annual conference organized by CSW, Thinking Gender 2015 will feature a keynote, networking workshops, a poster exhibition, and more than forty presentations, over two days from April 23 to 24.2015.

With the theme of “Power, Contested knowledge, and Feminist practices,” the twenty-fifth graduate student research conference will focus on feminism and sciences, exploring the participation and/or contributions of marginalized individuals or groups who had been historically excluded from knowledge production, and analyzing how the feminist approach has altered the existing understanding of scientific knowledge and practices. The topics of panels include the bodies of medicine; gender movement in contested spaces; construction and representations of bodies in the arts; faith and feminism; gender in conflict zones; technology and power; gender, cultures, and environmental crisis; consumerism in reproduction and maternal identities; gendered networks; gender disparities in sciences; language, communication, and gender; and feminist epistemology.

Expanding upon the one-day format of previous conferences, CSW invites to participate in a two-day conference at UCLA Covel Commons. In addition to the keynote on gender studies and sciences, we also include workshops and interactive activities for the participants. including an introduction of Krav Maga.This self-defense technique is based on the self-protective principle and knowledge/practices generated from real experiences in real contexts. In terms of scope, we envision a broad range of presenters and an audience interested in interdisciplinary, transnational, cross-regional studies that engage with both contemporary and historical issues. In addition to presenting research papers in panels, we plan a poster exhibition on the themes of the conference. Undergraduate students are eligible to submit poster proposals.

Thinking Gender provides a scholarly and social milieu for graduate students from around the world to present and discuss their work, as well as to expand their networks and connect with their peers and participating scholars. We expect the presenters to pose incisive questions to, and respond to topical comments from, the faculty and scholars moderating the panels, as well as the audience. Participants may receive travel grants and the top presentations may be published in a edited volume.

Chien-Ling Liu is the conference coordinator of Thinking Gender 2015. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at UCLA. Her dissertation is on the microbiological studies and public health work by the Pasteur Institutes in China between 1899 and 1950, particularly concerning prophylaxis of smallpox and rabies. She is interested in power dynamics of scientific knowledge production and practices in cross-cultural contexts, relating to the issues of modernity. When not writing her dissertation, she enjoys going to movies and playing badminton.